'Star Trek Into Darkness': Why Spock's eyebrows are more high-maintenance than his ears

In this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly (click here to buy the issue) we explore the history of Spock’s ears, but Star Trek Into Darkness makeup department head David Anderson says that applying the Vulcan appendages was not the most painstaking part of Zachary Quinto’s transformation.

What was Spock’s most high-maintenance facial feature?

His signature sculpted eyebrows.

“I’d have OptiVision goggles on and, working about 12 inches from Zach’s face, I’d apply about 60 to 80 hairs, one by one, to each eyebrow,” Anderson says of using individual “extensions” to lengthen and fill Quinto’s own brows each day. “I’d grab a single hair, dip it in the glue, apply it, and repeat. It was the only way to do it.”

Of the two-and-a-half-hours Quinto spent in the makeup chair each day, it took almost twice as much time to manicure his eyebrows than it did to apply the prosthetic ears.

“I created a vacu-form stencil — which kind of looked like a Lone Ranger mask — so that each day, Zach could put the mask on and I’d have the marks I needed to recreate them as accurately as I could,” Anderson explains. “But by the end [of filming] I was averaging about 45 to 50 minutes per eyebrow. I kept wondering why it started taking longer and longer, and then I found out that Zach had been going home each night and trimming his brows on his own. For each fraction of a millimeter that he shaved off, I’d have to apply dozens more hairs!”

Follow Bronwyn on Twitter: @BronwynBarnes

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